16 Apr 2016

Psychodiagnostic assessment may be useful as a treatment for children with mood disorders, alleviating some distress for patients and their families during the wait for more intensive treatment, reports a recent study from the USA. The benefit of these assessments, however, appears less effective if mood disorder is comorbid with ADHD, disruptive behaviour disorder [DBD] or anxiety disorder.

This was an open-label study of psychodiagnostic screening assessment as a treatment before randomisation to clinical trials, to assess whether mood symptoms improve after assessment, identify predictors of improvement and determine if improvement between screening assessment and randomisation affect treatment response.

These data suggest that psychodiagnostic screening assessment was most helpful for children with less severe clinical presentations, including those without comorbid ADHD, and that less intensive interventions may beneﬁt children with mild to moderate mood symptoms. These findings may have signiﬁcant public health implications due to the risk associated with delaying treatment.